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Saturday, March 5, 2011

Soul Link 01 - Doesn't Navel ever get tired of this stuff?

In the words of an Engrish-speaking flight announcer, "Welcome to the Space," and welcome to the first episode of Soul Link. Despite its reputation, origins, and images like the above, I found this to be a surprisingly good sci-fi drama. In fact, this first episode is practically a bait-and-switch operation, as the silliness and fanservice generally declines from here on in. It may not be the greatest show ever, and some episodes are full of exposition and infodump, but it's still better than it lets on.

For the subtitles on this, I'm once again using the work of the fine folks at Yesy. However, I'm also comparing things with Kaze no Koe Fansubs' subs to get a second opinion on TL and editing. Several things from KnKF's release will be implemented, including the general styling and the use of "Aniki" and "Nii-san" when Ryouta and Aki address their older brothers. And of course, I'm adding my own input to the subs as well. Encode source is from SumiSora, and I suggest you obtain the raws if you can; I will be offering xdelta patches to go from CNsub -> ENGsub, in an attempt to improve distribution speeds.

Despite the one verified instance of added censorship on these DVDs (see 02:30 in this file), I think the audio, video, and subtitle (TL/editing/timing + hardsub->softsub) improvements in this DVD release are worthwhile.